Nashville, TN(615) 555-0182hello@willowcreek.exampleDemonstration site — not a lender
Willow CreekHome Finance
Run the numbers

The bench

Renting is not throwing money away, and buying is not free

Both households start with the same cash. Whichever is cheaper in a given month invests the difference; whichever is dearer draws it down. That symmetry is the whole argument.

Rent vs buyIllustrative figures onlyShareable as a link

Your numbers

Assumptions you can change

It recalculates as you type — there is no submit button, and nothing is sent anywhere.

Renting is ahead after 10 years by

$90,459

$2,837.94 a month to own, $2,420.00 to rent at the start

Where the money is

After 10 years the buyer's net worth from this decision is $193,192 — the home sold, costs paid, mortgage cleared, plus -$98,298 in their investment account. The renter's is $283,650, all of it invested. Buying does not pull ahead within the period modelled.

Cash in at the start
$103,500

Down payment plus closing costs. The renter invests exactly this.

Buyer net worth after 10 years
$193,192
Renter net worth after 10 years
$283,650
Home value at exit
$634,769
Mortgage still owed at exit
$305,194
Selling costs at exit
$38,086
Buying is ahead from
not within the period
Net worth from this decision, year by year
$0$100k$200kyr 5yr 10
BuyingRenting

What this is doing

  • Tax treatment is deliberately not modelled — no mortgage interest deduction, no capital-gains exclusion on a primary residence. Both would usually favour buying, so the result here is, if anything, conservative about owning. Pretending to model them accurately without knowing your bracket would be worse than leaving them out and saying so.
  • The investment return is applied to whichever household is banking money that month, at the same rate. Give one side a return and not the other and you can produce whatever answer you like.
  • Every figure here is illustrative. It is generated from the numbers you typed using published rules, and it is not a rate quote, a pre-qualification, or an offer of credit.

The rule this page applies

The common rigged version banks the renter's surplus but never charges the renter when renting costs more, using a one-sided floor at zero. Here the surplus is signed: one side's gain is exactly the other side's loss, so the two investment accounts always sum to the shared starting cash.

Source: Symmetric net-wealth comparison

Share this scenario

Your inputs are the state, and the state is the URL. Copying the link copies the exact scenario on screen.

Questions people ask about this one

Why does renting look better than I expected?

Usually because the down payment is being invested rather than sitting in a wall. That opportunity cost is real and most lender calculators quietly omit it. Set the investment return to zero and watch the answer swing.

Why is there no tax deduction?

Because it depends on your bracket, whether you itemise at all, and the state you are in. A number invented for you would look precise and be wrong. It is left out, and the omission is stated.

What is the single most sensitive input?

Appreciation, then the holding period. Selling costs of 6% take several years of appreciation to recover, which is why short holds usually favour renting even in a rising market.

Take this scenario to a person

Marked fields are required. Everything else is optional — a broker only needs enough to call you back and know what you are asking about.

This form does not send anything. It validates what you type and shows a confirmation. Nothing is stored in a database, nothing is emailed, and nobody will call you. Willow Creek Home Finance is a fictional company built to demonstrate a design system.

The rest of the bench

Monthly payment

Principal, interest, taxes, insurance, mortgage insurance and HOA — drawn as five separate threads, not folded into one number.

Amortisation

The full schedule, switchable month-wise and year-wise, with a running total and the crossover month called out.

Affordability

Income, debts and cash in, a defensible price out — and a plain statement of which of the three constraints is the one actually holding the number down.

Refinance

Costs divided by monthly saving is the answer most sites give, and it ignores the fact that a new 30-year term restarts the clock. Both numbers are shown here.

Extra payment

A recurring extra, a one-off lump sum, or both — against the interest they remove and the months they take off the end.

FHA MIP

The upfront premium, the annual premium, and the part almost every calculator gets wrong: whether it ever comes off.

VA purchase

The VA funding fee changes with the down payment and with whether it is your first use of the entitlement. Exempt borrowers pay none of it.

VA refinance

An IRRRL carries a 0.50% funding fee; a VA cash-out carries 2.15% or 3.30%. Both are shown against a true break-even.

Points

One point is one percent of the loan, paid today, for a lower rate for as long as you keep it. The only question that matters is how long that is.

HELOC

Interest-only while you draw, then a fully amortising payment that can be several times larger. Both are shown, because the second one is the surprise.

DSCR

Debt-service coverage divides the rent the property brings in by what the property costs to carry. Most lenders want 1.20 or better.

Fix & flip

Acquisition, rehab, points, interest, holding costs and selling costs against the after-repair value — with the cash you actually have to put in.